


Only Better

by ZhoraKys



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Canon Compliant, Getting Together, M/M, Mutual Pining, Non-Monogamy, On-Again/Off-Again Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-09-26
Packaged: 2019-05-04 05:07:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 17,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14585622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZhoraKys/pseuds/ZhoraKys
Summary: Julian and Garak both know this can't end well -- but since when has that knowledge stopped either of them?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title lovingly ripped off from the [song by Mesh](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QkZE78hPX0), because "you didn't waste all that time/ to just leave forever" is such a Julian Bashir thing to say.

“My dear Doctor… relax! No one ever comes to this corner of the pylon — not unless there’s an emergency,” says Garak, pressing his lips against the Doctor’s neck, just below the jawline, sucking gently.

Julian strangles a moan as it tries to escape his throat and pushes back at Garak. “That’s not… precisely… my concern…”

He feels one of Garak’s hands move to new territory, well beyond the border of friends, and gasps. 

“Ah… Garak! I’m worried about what’s… what’s gotten into you?”

Garak pauses, coming round to meet the Doctor’s gaze, their noses hovering barely a centimetre apart. 

“Oh, _dear_ … I must admit, Doctor, I was hoping that it would be you.” The Cardassian gives him a predatory grin.

Julian’s face flushes with heat. He must be the colour of a command-track uniform right about now. He’s lying to himself if he denies having thought about railing Plain Old Garak over his sewing table from time to time, but it’s always seemed like such a ridiculous fantasy, reserved for wanton evenings spent alone in his quarters.

“You can’t be serious,” he says, pulling away in earnest now.

A beat, then a smile. “If you’d prefer it the other way around…”

Julian feels himself go weak at the knees as blood rushes south. His cock twitches, roused by the sudden mental image: his field of vision, the shadowed grey of the bulkhead swaying slightly while Garak pins him against the wall and takes him.

“Oh,” is all he can manage.

Then Garak is on him again and Julian’s thinking, _oh, what the hell,_ and tasting the inside of the Cardassian’s mouth with a vigor normally reserved for fine Klingon cuisine. 

The tailor dispenses with Julian’s shirt in quick order, taking a moment to pull back and appraise his naked torso — finishing with an approving nod and a subtle flick of the tongue that doesn’t go unnoticed — before kneeling and yanking down the Starfleet-issue trousers.

Exposed, Julian leans back against the bulkhead. This is certainly not how he’d expected the afternoon to transpire, but now he’s here, his reservations are quickly fading. 

Garak makes some noise of approval that Julian could swear he’s heard in the context of fabric swatches, and kneels to take the human in his hands, leaving Julian gasping as that deft tongue flicks over the head of his cock, teasing him.

Julian gasps again, and sits up straight in his own bed, in his own quarters, quite alone.

“Um.” He rubs his eyes. “ _Fuck._ ” It had been so real this time. He looks down, takes stock of himself. Physically, he’s quite convinced. He leans back against the headboard, weighing his options. 

Eventually he settles for a quick sonic shower and some deep breathing, if only because he can’t shake the feeling that somehow, a certain Cardassian is keeping embarrassingly close tabs on him. 

_I have to do something about this,_ he thinks, pulling on his uniform.

Ever since the incident with the Betazoid virus, he hasn’t been able to shake the feeling that he’s missed out on a great opportunity.

Certainly, it’s not that he doesn’t find Major Kira attractive — that’s more than a _latent_ attraction, if he’s being perfectly honest — but with half the station going to town on one another for a day, he can’t help but wonder if he’s missed out on something a little more interesting.

He’s never been with a Cardassian, but alien anatomy has rarely been more than a temporary hurdle. He’s a doctor, after all. Garak, if he’s being perfectly honest, frightens him. 

_Thrills_ him, yes, but… even now they’re friends he’s never been able to shake the knowledge that the man could — and _would_ — murder him in cold blood for any number of minor transgressions. 

His thoughts return, once again, to a lunchtime conversation that they’d had the week following the incident. 

Garak had been the first to bring it up, asking the doctor in a conspiratorial tone if he’d noticed people acting “unusually amorous” that day. 

Julian had nodded into his Raktajino and confessed to his mixup with the Major. 

_“Major Kira? Why, Doctor. I always knew you carried a torch for Commander Dax — who among us wouldn’t — but, the Major? I would have thought she’d be too… erm… well, how can I put this…”_

_“I’m aware that Kira is more inclined toward the fairer sex, if that’s what you’re getting at, Garak.”_

_“Certainly. Though I understand she’s had her share of trysts with male Bajoran political figures…”_

_“Come now, can’t you stop with your damned conspiracy theories for one second? The point is, I kissed Major Kira, hell, I came this close to shagging Major Kira, I don’t feel good about it, and I’m sorry.”_

_“You’re… sorry? My dear Doctor, sorry for what? For abandoning your medical practice for one night of depravity?”_

Julian feels his face grow slightly hot. Why indeed? What did he have to apologize to Garak about? Why had he been unable to shake the feeling that he’d betrayed the man somehow?

He’d shaken his head. 

_“I don’t know. Poor choice of words, maybe.”_

_“I’m simply glad that I wasn’t in the general vicinity of Madame Troi while this whole debacle unfolded. I can do without the added resentment that such a situation might bring up against me.”_

_“What, you think someone would try to… get revenge against you for—for sleeping with them? That doesn’t make any sense.”_

_“No one on Deep Space Nine wants to be the pariah who, in a fit of insanity, made passionate advances toward a Cardassian. Trust me, Doctor.”_

And Bashir thinks the same thing he’d thought that afternoon: _is that a challenge, Garak?_

*****

Garak had known that damned boy — that gorgeous, sleek, shimmering _boy_ — was going to be a problem since Julian had arrived on Terok Nor. Back in the days when he still, in his private thoughts, called it by that name.

He’d attempted to neutralize the problem at the first opportunity.

Be _seductive,_ he thinks. Here’s a man so anxious about being categorized as xenophobic that he’d fuck a Lurian just to prove a point. A Cardassian is no problem. And Garak already has the benefit of intrigue. _Mystery._ He can tell immediately that Bashir is the type who’ll respond to that.

_One quick, rough fuck and you can go back to your corner, forget about him. Mystery solved._

But it hadn’t worked that way. 

For one, Garak had totally misjudged the man’s level of experience with his own sex. The Julian Bashir whom he’d initially read as perfectly happy playing for any team — so long as he was playing — had turned out to have rather lopsided experience. 

Which, of course, has only made things worse for Garak. He’s discovered entirely new facets to his own preferences just by spending time with that oblivious, delicious little twink.

Tailoring provides barely enough of a distraction, and their weekly lunches are torturous — a parade of innuendo and double-entendre behind the thin veneer of a two-man book club. Some days, it’s all he can do not to lunge across the table and nail the good Doctor to the floor of the replimat. 

But if the Order’s taught him anything, it’s patience and restraint. Garak can wait a lifetime — two lifetimes — for the Doctor to get the hint and make the first obvious move, implicating himself rather than Garak. 

So he continues to smile, and nod, and offer polite disagreement and playful rebuttal, punctuating his words with what he hopes are ever more suggestive silences.

Doctor Bashir _will_ get the hint. Garak won’t rest until he finds an effective strategy.


	2. Chapter 2

It’s a week after the holosuite incident and they’re sitting in a cafe on the French Riviera. The view is stunning, and neither Julian nor Garak has given it a single glance since sitting down.

Garak taps his cup of espresso to the saucer and says, “I still can’t believe you nearly shot me, Doctor.”

Julian squints. “What do you mean, nearly?”

“My point exactly. Why — I’d commend you on your sharp-shooting, but I can’t shake the idea that your incredible aim was pure… how do you humans say it… dumb luck.”

“Five lives for the price of one — that’s still quite a bargain.” Julian glances at their waitress. Her shirt buttons are fastened all the way up to her collar. He fixes his eyes once again on Garak. “I dare say it’s a sentiment that most _Cardassians_ I’ve met would understand.”

“You’re starting to get it, dear Doctor. But without knowing that your sacrifice would have saved the Ops crew… it seems a gesture in futility. And anyway, your precious Federation would have lived on _sans_ the high-ranking staff of Deep Space Nine.”

Julian’s distracted; he doesn’t pick up the thread of the argument. He wonders when Garak learned to start tossing bits of French into his Standard, then looks at the man — really looks at him. The Cardassian’s mouth is as hermetic as ever, keeping its many secrets, but the eyes give something away. Even in the glare of late afternoon sunlight, Julian can see something new in that wide-eyed gaze.

A stab of some familiar pain — or pleasure — whines through him.

“Doctor,” Garak says, taking a final, dainty sip of his espresso. “Would you care to take a walk?”

*****

The trees along the river’s edge are bright green this time of year, and the whole scene is suffused with a sense of being not-quite real, though Julian has triple-checked the parameters of his holoprogram. He feels as though he’s walking through a painting. 

At his request, they stop to admire a colourful bird that’s made itself half-visible through a thin patch of foliage a few feet above their heads. Julian could name the species, if he tried, but he’s not trying — he’s too distracted by the faint touch of Garak’s shoulder, which brushes lightly against his as the shorter man leans left and right, trying to get a clear view of the creature. 

Without warning, the bird takes off violently, wrenching loose a handful of leaves which float to the ground in front of Bashir’s eyes.

“A shame,” says Garak.

Julian, still staring up into the tree, says softly, “no.”

Garak’s eye ridges are raised, quizzical, but he’s smiling. 

“I just mean… nothing about this is a ‘shame.’ It’s beautiful.”

Julian’s staring at Garak. Garak’s mouth quivers with something more than a question. 

“I thought you programmed this simulation, Doctor.”

Julian shrugs. “I mean…” _oh, hell._ He feels himself going red. 

Garak shifts from one foot to the other with a tight, lopsided curl of the lips that says he knows precisely what the Good Doctor meant but is content to watch him flounder. 

“Blue-cheeked bee-eater,” blurts Julian. “ _Merops Persicus._ Native to Northern Africa, but with strong westward migratory habits.”

Garak looks bewildered for just a fraction of a second, then resumes his curled grin. 

“I had no idea you were a hobby ornithologist, Doctor.”

“Not really a hobby even. Just good at absorbing information.”

“Tell me, when ever did you find the time, between the Academy medical track, and your many conquests?”

Missing Garak’s rather clumsy attempt at angling toward sexual subject matter, Julian falls back on literature.

“Oh, I wedged it in somewhere between my readings of that Shakespearean drivel.”

“Your words, Doctor, not mine.”

They’re inching slightly closer, and Julian is backing up, easing into a position that he knows will leave him pinned against the trunk of the tree.

“Tell me you disagree.”

“Oh, I don’t disagree with your assessment, though I would guess that you’re being facetious.”

“Well, you’ve got me there.”

“I’ve got you, here, as well—“ Garak gestures at the narrowing sliver of land between them as if they’re playing chess. 

“Have you?” Julian presses his back into the tree. He’s out of moves. 

“Tell me, dear Doctor, was coffee your only plan for today, or did you have something else in mind for dessert?”

“Why, all I planned was to treat you to lunch on the Riviera — it was your suggestion, after all.”

“What are you insinuating, Doctor?”

“Oh, just that you have much better taste in restaurants than I do, clearly.”

“Your words again, Doctor. You may want to switch up your tactics if you’re hoping to win an argument.”

“Is that what we’re doing? Arguing? Correct me if I’m wrong but I understand that this is what Cardassians call flirting.”

Now it’s Garak’s turn for wide eyes. He steps forward rather than speaking, obliterating the space between them.

“And where did you learn _that,_ Julian?”

The use of his first name sends another jolt through him, and this time he can feel that familiar, shimmering warmth unfurl in his belly. It falls like heavy vapour rolling down a mountain, settling between his legs, making him press his lower back into the rough bark of the tree trunk.

Garak is still looking at him like that, eyes wide, pupils dilated. Julian holds perfectly still as Garak trails one fingertip from his ear to his chin, under the jawline. The tailor holds his fingers there, as if taking Julian’s pulse, then pulls away. 

“I must say,” Garak murmurs, looking up. “The scenery is rather...intoxicating.”

For a moment Julian thinks, _this is it_ , he even licks his lips, hoping Garak’s eyes will follow the movement. But the older man pulls away and gives him a smile that could say “not yet,” or “not ever.”

Julian’s gutted, and makes up some excuse about having to get back to the infirmary. 

He promises to meet Garak again. 

“Same time next week?” 

“In the replimat. For nostalgia’s sake.”

*****

For weeks, it drives Julian crazy. Not an hour goes by when he’s not desperately trying to excise some absurd new fantasy from his mind so he can actually focus on work. 

Even when he’s with Garak, even during their lunches, his mind is off in his quarters, or in Garak’s quarters, or in some disused, shadowed corner of a pylon, huffing and sweating and mumbling obscene nonsense.

And of course, there’s plenty for his imagination to play with. He’s never so much as made out with a Cardassian of any gender, and with so few on the station his field training in the department has been sparse to say the least. In some lazy daydreams Garak’s trousers conceal something mostly familiar — and when he has more time to get caught up, Julian spends hours in his head, extrapolating environmental and evolutionary data to construct models as terrifying as they are arousing. 

A few times he even contemplates making use of the holosuites — he knows Quark, ever the considerate host, has kept a few of the Cardassian pleasure programs on file _just in case._ But hell, even if Julian was so inclined, just the thought of it leaves him with a distinctly unclean feeling, and anyway, there’s no way to sneak into the holosuites — Quark would know exactly what program he had purchased, and the Ferengi isn’t an idiot. He’d connect those dots in short order. 

The doctor brings it up drunkenly, in the vaguest of terms, to both Jadzia and O’Brien at different intervals. Both assure him, in their own way, that he's simply over-thinking things; that if he wants someone that bad, it shouldn't be a stretch to just _tell_ them.

O’Brien, in particular, seems perplexed that Julian is even asking. The doctor’s always seemed like such a “go-getter.” His words. Julian asks him if he means "slut." O'Brien only laughs. They finish a bottle of his nice whiskey. 

Jadzia is slightly more sympathetic to Julian's plight. Mercifully, she doesn’t start speculating until he’s left her quarters — but the next day when he stops by Ops Major Kira's gaze seems more than a little accusatory.

Eventually, he resigns himself to it. He has a track record for impatience. He runs the simulations in his head -- given the situation, and enough time, some stumbling, ill-planned advance on his part is virtually a foregone conclusion. 

So he continues to spend the usual amount of time with Garak, and an increasing amount of time daydreaming about Garak, and nurses that feeling, that _need_ that's growing in the pit of his belly.


	3. Chapter 3

Julian only has to wait a few days before the matter comes to a head. 

He’s been going over his plan, again and again, giving himself little pep-talks whenever he has a quiet moment.

_Just tell him. Just get it out in the open. Anyway, it doesn’t have to be a big deal._

_Hey, Garak, I enjoy your company, and I think I’d also enjoy it in a more… physical sense. Wink wink, nudge nudge._

_Too flowery._

_Garak, I’ll cut to the chase. I wanna fuck you._

_Too crass._

_Garak… how about dinner?_

_Candlelight? Flowers? An evening at the opera? Garak’s not that kind of man._

_Is Garak that kind of man?_

“Is something the matter, Doctor? You seem a little distracted.” Garak’s face is a perfect mask of friendly concern next to Julian as they walk down the promenade, heading for the tailor’s shop. 

“Hm? Ah… no. No I’m fine. Just… trying to work out a. Ah. A medical issue.”

“Oh? Well if you’d like to talk things through — I don’t have any fittings scheduled for the next hour or so, and I do find having something to listen to keeps my mind off the monotony of stitching…”

Julian is about to say no, but “sure” falls out of his mouth instead.

 _No, no, no, no! What are you doing? You idiot!_

He quells the voice in his head. Julian stands silently in the shop for a few minutes, watching Garak lay out a few different swatches on his work bench. The Cardassian shoots him an expectant look. 

“Doctor…?”

“Huh! Oh, right. Um. Let’s see. The issue I’m trying to work out has to do with… uh… Cardassian… anatomy.”

_Some cover story._

“Well! Why didn’t you ask in the first place, Doctor? I happen to have some experience in the field.”

“Right. Well, to be honest I was… embarrassed. I’m a doctor on a formerly Cardassian station and I don’t know the first thing about Cardassians, really.”

“Well, what _would_ you like to know?” 

_Make something up! Quick!_

“Uh. Well. I was doing some research into… uh… Cardassian… pain… receptors.”

“Pain receptors?”

“Right, like, um… well, as a doctor who’s frequently thrown into combat situations, I need to know how pain works in other species. For the purposes of… medication dosages… injection locations… knowing what types of wounds are going to incapacitate a person… that type of thing.”

Julian has to wheel his arms to stop himself from falling backwards into a rack of trousers, nearly taking the whole thing down with him. He’d been unconsciously backing up as he spoke.

Garak admirably pretends not to notice, though the half-smile that plays briefly across his features is all the mocking Julian needs. 

“Doctor, I must ask… did you not learn enough from your experience helping me get that damned wire out of my skull?”

“We never got it _out,_ we just—“

“That was _not_ my question, dear.”

Julian swallows. Garak’s putting down his needles and approaching him now, a predatory look in his eyes. 

“Well… yes and no. I learned a lot. But those were, uh, extenuating circumstances. Surely your withdrawal from the device doesn’t represent a normal Cardassian pain response and—“

Garak interrupts him by grabbing one of Julian’s hands and placing it on the gently-sloping ridge of scales that runs down the side of his neck.

“To begin with, Doctor, the neck is an especially _sensitive_ part of Cardassian anatomy.”

Julian gapes, not daring to move his fingers. The way Garak emphasizes the word “sensitive” tells him that the area can feel more that just pain.

Garak’s dragging Julian’s hand further up the ridge. “Those scales right… near the head… behind what you humans would call the ears… _especially_ so.” He lets go of Julian’s hands. It’s a gesture of trust. Julian responds, gently, _gently_ pinching the ridge between thumb and forefinger.

Garak’s face twists into an expression that’s not _quite_ pain.

“Additionally… the _chufa._ ” He draws his own hand up to trace the curve of that characteristic divot on his forehead, what a less culturally-sensitive non-Cardassian might have called the “spoon.”

“ _Chufa?_ ”

“Your accent needs work, Doctor. But yes. About as sensitive as Ferengi lobes, if you do follow my meaning.” He steps back, eyebrows raised, and Julian lets out the breath he’d been holding. 

“That’s… helpful.”

“I’m happy to be of service,” Garak says with a curt bow. He makes a slight movement as if to return to his work station.

Julian, possessed by a terrible urge, grabs the older man by the shoulders. “Garak,” he says. “Wait…”

“Hm?”

“What happens if I…” and Julian moves his hands upward, simultaneously, until he’s caressing both sides of Garak’s neck. 

The sound that the Cardassian makes sends a lighting flash of heat through Bashir. He has to steady himself mentally, to avoid pressing himself bodily against the other man.

“Doctor..” Garak strains, pulling away. “Perhaps this isn’t the ideal location to conduct such a… lesson.” When Bashir looks disappointed he says, “but, if you’d prefer, I can stop by your quarters later this evening and give you a more thorough explanation on Cardassian pain receptors.”

*****

The doctor leaves rather abruptly after that, and Garak’s left alone with his stitching, trying to sort out exactly how badly he’s fucked up. 

_Well, it was the doctor who initiated the whole conversation,_ he thinks, chewing on the pin between his teeth. 

_On the other hand, the bit about the neck ridges was awfully forward._ He stabs the pin vengefully through two layers of rough hemming. 

_But the doctor also undeniably took matters into his own hands._

Garak feels a faint shiver run through him at the thought of those long surgeon’s fingers caressing his neck. 

_You’re in too deep, Elim. The poor boy will be crushed if you stand him up this evening. And anyway, wasn’t this your plan to begin with? He’ll realize soon enough that you’re not worth the trouble, then you can forget about all of this._

Nothing else for it. He catches a brief glimpse of himself in the fitting room mirror as he moves to grab a sample from the rack, and shakes his head.

 _Count your blessings, Elim. You may never get a chance like this again._

*****

“Garak.” Quark nods at the Cardassian as he places a freshly replicated cup of synth ale in front of a waiting patron. 

“Quark. Lovely to see you this evening. I’m afraid I won’t be staying, I’m simply picking up a… gift.”

“A gift. What’s the occasion? I’ll warn you ahead of time, the Kanar bottles are tamper-proof.”

“I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about. A bottle of the middle-shelf vintage, if you please.”

Quark clucks with amusement as he scans his PADD to check his inventory. “ _Middle-shelf,_ Garak?” The Ferengi lifts his eyes and leans in conspiratorially. “Is the dry spell finally over?”

Garak gives him a withering look. Quark puts up his hands and scurries off to fetch the bottle. When he returns, he has an amused glint in his eye. 

“Fifteen strips. Does anyone besides you Cardassians actually _drink_ this stuff? You’re sure I can’t interest you in a bottle of spring wine? Unless you’re planning on hate-fucking Gul Dukat…”

Garak tosses the fifteen strips onto the bar and glares at Quark. “If you must know, I’m celebrating a _personal_ victory.”

Quark looks as if he might inquire further, but before he can speak, Garak flashes him an absolutely _homicidal_ smile. “Well,” says the bartender. “In that case — to victory.” He hands Garak the bottle.

Garak grabs it and makes a beeline back toward the habitat ring, keeping to the shadows and looking over his shoulder every few seconds.


	4. Chapter 4

Garak appears at Julian’s quarters at 22:00 that evening.

“Come!” The doctor calls from his living room. He surveys the tailor with wild, anxious eyes, his gaze settling on the bottle tucked into the crook of Garak’s elbow. 

“Kanar?”

“The finest vintage I could get my hands on… given the circumstances.”

“Well. Come in, come in. Uh. Make yourself comfortable.” Julian takes the bottle from him as a sly smile spreads across his face. “Garak,” he says slowly. “Are you planning on getting me drunk?”

“ _Doctor!_ What sort of man do you take me for? I do believe I’m here to instruct you on the finer points of Cardassian anatomy. Since you seem in such great need of a tutor.”

Julian mouths an “ah,” and nods. “Were you also a tutor, before the tailoring business took off?”

“I’ve been many things, Doctor.” 

“Come on, sit down.” Julian returns to his spot on the sofa as if in demonstration. “Shall we open this?” He gestures at the bottle, now sitting expectant on the coffee table.

Garak, still standing, tilts his head in agreement. “Have you any glasses?”

“Replicate us a couple, would you?”

A moment later Garak returns with two squat, round glasses. He takes a seat next to Bashir and pops open the bottle, pouring two fingers worth into each glass. All the while Julian is hyper-aware of the tailor’s proximity; the way the Cardassian’s upper arm _just_ grazes his as Garak leans in to perform the task; the fact that they’re totally alone.

“A toast,” Garak says, holding up a glass. 

“To what?”

Thinking for a moment, Garak answers, “to acquired knowledge.”

Julian chuckles, and takes a tentative sip. The Kanar is, indeed, good — far smoother than what he’s had previously. The alcohol burns with a pleasant, lingering warmth, rather than searing down his throat.

He takes another sip, and notes the way the warmth spreads into his lower extremities. 

Garak looks at him. Smiles. “Well, Doctor. Where were we?”

“Where…?”

“In your lesson.”

“Ah!” Julian remembers, but revisiting that charged moment, summoning up that reckless courage again, here — where there’s nothing, and no one, to stop things from going further — seems a daunting task. He takes another sip of Kanar. “We were discussing the neck ridges.”

“Quite right, dear Doctor.” Garak applies a gentle finger to a scale just above the collar of his garment. “As I was telling you, the neck ridges… are quite sensitive. May I?”

Then Garak’s taken both of Julian’s hands. For a moment, the Doctor can’t breathe.

“Oh. Of course.”

The tailor brings Julian’s hands up to the sides of his neck. “Gentle pressure, applied vertically, can be pleasant.”

Julian hesitates, then feels the pleasant buzz of the alcohol, still humming through his veins. He runs his fingers up Garak’s neck ridges, from collar to jaw, then down again. 

Garak doesn’t break eye contact, but his gaze grows momentarily more intense. 

“Harder pressure,” he says, “elicits a more… noticeable response.”

Julian pinches a scale, gently at first, applying progressively more pressure. Garak hisses gently, shutting his eyes. 

Julian doesn’t know what comes over him — perhaps it’s that initial buzz of the alcohol that weakens him, or his slow realization that this “lesson” doesn’t seem to have anything to do with _pain_ — but seeing Garak’s eyes shut, he seizes upon an opportunity, leaning forward to gently press his lips to Garak’s forehead. The motion’s quick; furtive. His hands migrate to Garak’s shoulders. 

As the doctor pulls away Garak opens his eyes and says in an unusually gravelly voice, “I see you remembered your lesson from earlier.”

Julian chews his lip. He wants to do it again. He wants to kiss Garak. On the forehead, the ears, the lips. He wants to undress Garak and kiss every inch of the man’s cool, slate grey skin. 

“Garak,” he says softly. His heart’s beating out of his chest. “Do Cardassians… do you… kiss?”

Garak flicks his tongue over his lips in a motion that’s so quick and subtle as to be almost imperceptible, but to Julian —keyed-up, horny, and gasping for a chance to make his move — the action speaks volumes. He leans in and _kisses_ Garak, feeling his own warm lips transfer their heat to the Cardassian’s. Then Garak is pushing him backward onto the sofa and that pleasantly cool tongue is probing the inside of Julian’s mouth. 

Julian makes a soft sound of delight, bringing his hands up to fondle Garak’s neck again. They fall into a horizontal position, Garak’s back pressed into the sofa while Julian writhes against him, his ass suspended halfway off the edge of the seat. Julian’s leg somehow snakes into the space between Garak’s thighs and he feels a growing pressure against his hip.

At length, he realizes that it’s Garak — it’s whatever Garak has in his trousers. He feels himself harden instantly at the knowledge that he’s having such an effect on the Cardassian, and grinds into the other man’s hip with two-fold enthusiasm.

Garak’s breathing turns fast; heavy. Julian mumbles his name. 

“Doctor. I must confess I… was beginning to wonder if you’d ever make a move.”

Julian pushes himself up on one elbow. “Wondering— you mean you’ve been waiting for _me_ to say something this _entire_ time?”

“I thought I was being quite obvious.”

“I thought _I_ was being obvious! That whole bit about Cardassian pain receptors? You actually bought that?”

“Why Doctor…” says Garak, as a devious smile creeps across his face, “who said the lesson was over?”

“Wha—aah!” Julian yelps as a set of Cardassian teeth bite down on his neck. “Garak!” Pain quickly turns to pleasure as he feels Garak’s hardened _something_ press against him again.

Garak follows the abuse with a series of gentle kisses, and Julian’s rocking his hips now in a vague, barely controlled rhythm against the tailor’s leg. 

A rumbling moan escapes Garak’s throat. 

“Doctor… I’d like to make you come.”

Bashir, overtaken by lust, says, “good — because you’re going to.” He extracts himself, clumsily, from their tangle on the sofa, and begins to peel off his uniform, letting Garak enjoy the show. A distant part of him hopes that the Cardassian might take the hint and do the same, but as he lets his trousers drop to the floor, posing in his underwear, Garak remains as infuriatingly clothed as ever. 

“May I… may I _see?_ ” He asks finally, pointing indelicately at Garak’s crotch. 

“Hm.” The tailor smiles. “You first.”

Julian glances down at his briefs, which are straining to contain his erection. He frowns, but slides his thumb under the waistband and pulls them down, slowly, letting his cock pop free in one faintly ridiculous motion.

“ _Fascinating,_ ” hisses Garak.

“ _Now, you,_ ” says Bashir. 

For a moment, Garak looks like he’ll worm his way out of it, but then something melts or breaks behind the eyes and he stands. Then Julian’s pressed against him, kissing him, long limbs grabbing at clothing that comes off too easily and soon enough he feels nothing but the Cardassian’s cool, uncannily smooth scales against his bare skin. 

Garak sits again, pulling the Doctor down with him in an embrace that’s slightly awkward —until Julian finds a position that works. He’s straddling Garak’s lap, and it’s obscene, totally pornographic, and absolutely everything he’s ever wanted. 

His eyes dart furtively down to Garak’s… _well._

_Ask him!_

“So…” he flails, “What… um…”

Garak places a gentle hand at the spot where his thigh meets his hip. “ _Ajan,_ ” he says, simply. He looks up and watches Bashir mouth the word. 

Then his eyes settle on Bashir’s cock, which jerks upward even at such a spare hint of attention. 

“Uh… penis,” says Bashir clinically. “ _Cock._ ”

Garak smiles in a way that’s half-alluring, half-terrifying, and takes Bashir in his other hand. The doctor gasps with pleasure and has to grab Garak’s thighs to keep from rocking his hips again. 

But Garak is insistent. Bashir watches as the Cardassian’s fingers glide nimbly up and down his shaft, stopping occasionally to wick a drop of precum off the tip and smear it down his length. Julian’s crying out now, half-crazed, his skin flushed with desperate heat. His hips buck wildly and it’s difficult to tell if Garak’s jerking him off or if he’s fucking Garak’s hand. All the while he’s staring at that dark, swollen, wet-looking slit that Garak called his _ajan,_ wondering whether he’ll get to know anything more than its name. 

In a moment, he has his answer. Something seems to move beneath the skin, then a heavy, pale grey snake emerges from the dark, slick wound. It’s slightly thicker and more tapered than Julian’s but still unmistakably male. Julian’s so focused on it that for a second he loses track of Garak and he’s shocked by the man’s lips on his neck once again.

Then Garak’s got his hands wrapped around both of them and his… _whatever_ … is wet and slick and warm and soft and Julian yelps, shudders, and comes all over Garak’s fingers.

Riding the ebbing waves of his orgasm, he has exactly two seconds to look at Garak before the older man leans forward and buries his face in the crook of Julian’s neck, moaning softly through gritted teeth as he, too, comes forcefully. 

They stay there on the sofa, curled into each other, for a long time. Julian’s breathing gently, revelling in the _smell_ of Garak, something that hasn’t even occurred to him to wonder about. The Cardassian smells of flowers and raw cotton behind something deep, musky, with a sharp hint of incense smoke. 

Julian breathes in deeply through his nose, sighing out the air, warming the space between his mouth and Garak’s neck.

Garak is the first to break out of their pose, leaning back slowly, stiffly, stretching his shoulders this way and that. Julian stands and goes to the bathroom, returns holding a towel. 

“Care for a quick sonic?” He says, to avoid saying anything else.

“Of course, my dear.” Garak has his eyes closed, his head pressed back into the sofa cushions, though Julian notes that he doesn’t seem quite _relaxed._

“Penny for your thoughts.”

There’s a beat, then Garak opens his eyes. “You wouldn’t want to hear them,” he says.

“Try me.”

“I was simply thinking,” Garak says as he stands, groaning softly, “that I cannot _believe_ I’ve just had sex with a man who thinks _The Never-Ending Sacrifice_ is _dull._ ”

Julian stands for a moment, dumbfounded, covering himself delicately with the towel -- then bursts into hysterical laughter.


	5. Chapter 5

_Oh no._

_Oh no._

It’s just after 0100 as Garak darts down the corridor of the main habitat ring, back toward the relative safety of his own quarters. 

The Kanar bottle is sitting empty on Bashir’s coffee table, and while Garak is glad to be unencumbered, the mental image of that empty vessel hangs in his mind, sign and signifier of his own poor impulse control. Something sharp and bright has lodged itself in Garak’s chest, and he can’t pull it out. 

He doesn’t want to.

Certainly, he’d come to Julian’s quarters with the full intention of undressing the doctor. But now it’s nearly proper morning, and that encounter seems a fond but distant memory. 

Oh, they’d shared a sonic shower — the first mistake — and Garak had put his clothes back on with some dignity, and made his way toward the door. Then Julian had made some comment, called up some passage from that damned novel, something he’d actually enjoyed, _you know, Garak, there was this one line…_

And then they were talking. And they’d talked, and talked. Garak remembers Julian pouring them each another glass of Kanar, then things get fuzzy — loud, for a while, then quiet, just the sound of desperate breaths and moans, bare skin sliding over rough sheets.

Again. 

_Again!_ Garak bites the inside of his cheek, as he feels the warmth of the doctor’s skin return in patches to his own slate-coloured scales. He tastes blood, narrows in on the pain. The Kanar is not enough — he misses the wire. 

He lets the door to his quarters shut behind him, then falls back against it, sliding onto the floor. His quarters are dark and relatively warm — stuffy by any human standards, but even the highest thermal setting seems chilly on this forsaken chunk of shrapnel. 

He can push away the memories, the narrative, but not that twinge in his chest. Something twists and grabs at his ribs; his stomach. His thoughts wander back to Bashir. 

Bashir, laughing from across a replimat table. Bashir, comforting a patient with that golden smile. 

Bashir, mouth hanging open, eyes shut tight, crying out for release by Garak’s hand. 

He shuts his eyes, and realizes what he’d give to be back in the doctor’s quarters right now — to be with Julian, and not alone.

The thought terrifies him.

He isn’t sure what time it is when he wakes up, only that the blue-filter daylights have come on and his neck and back are painfully knotted and stiff. 

_I could go ask Bashir for a muscle relaxant._

Then grits his teeth, and stands, shaking the thought out of his head. 

*****

Julian scarcely sleeps that night. He can’t quiet his mind, can’t stop the record of Garak’s rough, sex-drenched voice as it loops, decaying into nonsense. He tosses and turns for a few hours before giving up and replicating himself an extra-strong raktajino. 

Of course, the cool filter of morning casts the whole affair in a far more anxious light.

_Now what?_

Some fragmented recollection of the previous night sends a thrill of excitement through Julian’s body, and he realizes, as he contemplates it, there’s the implicit, abstract idea of _more._

But that’s a two-way street. Does _Garak_ want more? Or is Garak already plotting to flee the station in a stolen runabout? 

Bashir’s in the infirmary when a reminder chimes on his personal PADD. He leans over with mild curiosity. 

[Springball -- 1400]

_Shit!_

He’d asked Garak to join him at the game several weeks ago, in an admittedly misplaced bid at pushing the envelope of their meetings. He remembers thinking, stupidly, that maybe if he and Garak just did something else, for once, perhaps Garak would be compelled to…

Well. He doesn’t need to finish that thought. Julian swipes away the reminder and sits staring into space. Should he find Garak, and remind him? 

_That seems a little needy. Anyway, Garak will remember. Don’t you trust him?_

_Don’t you?_

Rubbing his temples, Julian resolves to go to the game, Garak be damned. Anyway, he has more reason to attend a springball game than just the chance of brushing knees with the station’s tailor.

It’s a pleasant surprise, then, that when Julian arrives he finds Garak already sitting in the stands, waiting next to an empty seat over which he’s draped a silken shawl in a garish blue and yellow fabric.

“Doctor,” he says mildly.

“Garak.”

*****

What irks Julian the most, more than Garak’s insistence on spending half the game staring at that Cardassian woman, even more than the fact that Garak hasn’t said a word one way or another about what transpired in the Doctor’s quarters, is that Garak doesn’t seem _bothered._

It dawns on Julian that he’d hoped to break through that stubborn shell, that barrier that Garak’s constructed around himself. He’d half expected to destroy what relationship they already had. And he’d been prepared for it to end badly. 

Instead it seems that nothing’s changed. Garak’s just as polite as ever, offering his usual opinions on Julian’s taste in literature, fashion, and holosuite programs in his usual manner. Perhaps Julian has been naive, thinking that one passionate night and a few sweet nothings would be enough to break through what’s been building since Garak arrived on the station. 

Since well before that, obviously.

Still, he increasingly wonders if he’s being toyed with — if Garak simply gets off on watching him slowly going insane, trying to solve an impossible puzzle.

A week passes, and things almost seem normal. At least, they do on the outside. On the inside, Julian’s getting desperate, half wondering if should do something out of character to provoke a reaction. While they’re together, he’s taken to watching the corners of Garak’s mouth, the gentle tap of the man’s fingertips on the table, hoping to decode a secret message in those subtle movements. And when they’re not together, he’s worrying about Ziyal.

 _You’ve got no right to be jealous,_ he tells himself. But somehow it doesn’t make him feel it any less. 

He’s almost relieved when Captain Sisko calls upon him and the rest of the Ops team to head into Dominion territory, for Odo’s benefit. 

The morning they’re to leave, he sets his jaw and walks purposefully into Garak’s shop. It’s 0700 hours on the dot, and the tailor looks as though he’s already been working for hours.

“I’d heard rumours that the constable was… unwell,” says Garak absently, in response to Julian’s rather loud announcement that he’s leaving. “Tell me, does the Captain plan on doing any other reconnaissance, during your time in the Gamma Quadrant?”

“I don’t know,” says Julian. “I don’t think so.”

“Hm.”

“What are you thinking?”

Garak turns to face Julian, and for a moment something unspoken seems to thread through the two of them, cinching up the gap between them, pulling them closer. “I’m thinking,” says Garak, glancing around, then sauntering forward until he’s almost pressed against Bashir, “that such a mission could prove… risky.”

Julian’s not sure what to say to that, but it doesn’t matter because at once Garak’s lips are pressed to his and he can’t think anything. It’s over too quickly, and Garak retreats into the back corner of his shop like a spider retreating into a tunnel web. 

“Are we… are we ever going to talk about this?” Julian knows it’s not the right time, but if Garak’s going to be like this, he figures he has to take his chances wherever he can get them.

“Talk about what, dear?”

Some strange mix of anger and need rises in Julian’s throat. He wants to throw the tailor against the wall and bite into those damned ridges, slide his hand over Garak’s mouth and listen to the tailor’s muffled gasps as his fingers find that dark, wet slit again…

But there’s no time. And there’s an odd sparkle in Garak’s eyes, like he knows something that Julian doesn’t.

 _To hell with it,_ thinks Bashir. 

_I’ll find out soon enough._


	6. Chapter 6

Sitting in the holding cell after the incident aboard the Defiant — "attempted genocide,” as Sisko so indelicately called it — Garak has a lot of time to think. 

He eventually comes to the conclusion that he would have gotten away with it, if it hadn’t been for Bashir. 

If Julian hadn’t been on the surface — if he hadn’t had to consider, just briefly, how he’d feel knowing he’d murdered the only man on Deep Space Nine to show him even an ounce of compassion, he would have been able to concentrate fully on hot-wiring those plasma torpedoes and getting the show on the road.

But no. He’d hesitated for a fraction of a second, thinking about those caramel-coloured eyes and how sad they’d look, disintegrating into ash, and _boom._

Worf had knocked him out cold. 

When Julian finally stops by, three weeks into his detainment, he’s just happy to see the younger man’s face. He scarcely notices the rawness that bleeds into the corners of Julian’s eyes, the slight, unnatural downturn of the mouth. Perhaps he doesn’t want to notice it.

“Garak.”

“Doctor! How very kind of you to pay me a visit.”

“How are you doing?”

“Actually, I’m rather enjoying the break from the dull business of tailoring. I’ve been catching up on reading. Everything is taken care of for me in here,” he says, gesturing around the small, bare space. “Meals, laundry, exercise…” he stands, clasping his hands behind his back, and walks up to the forcefield. “I think I may _miss_ this room, once I’m released.”

“Really,” says the doctor. “That’s… that’s good.”

“And how have you been, dear Doctor? I must say, I’d wondered if you’d forgotten about me. I’m sure life on the station has been chaotic without the benefit of a shape-shifting security chief.”

“Things have been… interesting, yes.”

A long, sullen silence draws itself out between them. Then Julian balls his fists and blurts, “how could you, Garak?”

Garak simply frowns, knowing the rest will flow out of Julian the way his words always do. So easily. 

“How _could_ you? I… I should have guessed that you’d try to get revenge on the Dominion, but killing yourself? I can’t imagine you personally knew the people aboard the Cardassian ships. What could you possibly gain from such a reckless…” Julian trails off for a moment, turning his back as he paces back and forth in front of the forcefield. “Garak… _I_ was on the surface. You would have killed me, as well.”

“I might remind you that you attempted to shoot me in the Holosuite, Doctor. For your _greater good._ I’m sure I don’t need to remind you of the concept.”

“This isn’t—this isn’t nearly the same thing! You-- I’m talking about _genocide,_ Elim!”

It’s jarring, hearing his first name in the Doctor’s mouth. Even in their most intimate encounters, he’s always been plain, simple Garak.

“Is that what we’re talking about, Julian? Or are we talking about your precious Federation ideals? You may use a word like _genocide_ to make my actions sound reprehensible, but what of the Founders’ actions? They’ve openly committed hundreds -- _thousands_ of murders already. Those Cardassian ships were but one example. In my humble opinion, Starfleet was simply too cowardly to get rid of the problem while they -- while _you_ \-- had the opportunity.”

Julian grinds his teeth, swings his arms and continues pacing, muttering, “you don’t understand, you don’t understand at all…”

“Come on, Julian. Admit it. You’d be here bringing me chocolate if you’d only been on board the Defiant instead of down on the surface when it happened. You’re only upset because I was prepared to kill you.” Garak stands and steps toward the forcefield until he can feel the electromagnetic field buzzing at the tip of his nose.

“It hurts, being on the other side. Doesn’t it? You Federation types all think you’re so _pure._ You claim to believe in self-sacrifice, but when push comes to shove you want to talk. You want to _negotiate._ Let me tell you, doctor Bashir, that when the Founders come to break down your doors, you’ll find that sometimes there is no answer but _violence._ ”

The pain is exquisite as Garak twists the knife. He watches Julian’s chin quiver slightly as the man looks at the floor -- at the wall, anywhere but at Garak -- fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. Garak watches him, makes note of the way the younger man’s taut muscles pull at the fabric of his uniform. It takes all of his willpower not to claw at the forcefield, to try to cause it to fail.

But in the back of his mind, he knows that it’s for the best that he can’t touch Julian -- he’s too weak to feign apathy. In his imagination, he crumbles as the doctor flinches away from his touch.

“I thought you were my _friend,_ ” Julian whispers. “I thought you --” Another word catches in Julian’s throat and hangs between them, unspoken.

“I am your friend, my dear. But I’ve learned that friendship is rather fleeting, in the face of such tectonic decisions. One must always be prepared to sacrifice.”

Julian looks at him.

“I… can’t do this, Garak.” 

“Do what?” Garak asks. His voice wobbles. 

Two words and he’s totally lost his footing.

Julian gives him a look that says, _you know,_ and gestures wildly with his hands. “I don’t know. Whatever this is.” Garak opens his mouth but Julian puts up a hand. “Don’t. Don’t tell me I’m imagining things, don’t tell me there never was anything. You gave your cards up long ago. And as far as I’m concerned, that was your last chance to play games.”

And then he’s really leaving, turning to go before Garak has a chance to say anything.

“Goodbye, Garak.” He doesn't look back.

Garak stands, hovering an inch from the forcefield for a long time, waiting for the doctor reappear in the doorway.

But he doesn’t. Eventually, the lights dim for the evening, and Garak sits back on his cot, and cradles his head in his hands.


	7. Chapter 7

Leeta is a fine enough distraction, for a time. Julian manages not to think of _anyone_ else, for a few minutes, once or twice a week, when he’s not disturbed by any accidental plasma burns or holosuite-related sports injuries. The dabo-girl’s breasts are, truly, a wonder to behold -- especially when they’re bouncing wildly between his fingers as she rides him like a Cardassian hound... 

And then it’s over, and he’s thinking of Garak again. 

When they break up it’s a relief — to no longer have someone paying such acute attention to him makes it that much easier to shrug off questions about why he’s been so distant, lately. He keeps it together during their trip to Risa, though all he remembers of it is rain, and sleep, and one or two nameless, faceless mouths moaning sweetly around his cock. 

He does not go to visit Garak. Several times he has to stop himself from asking Odo how the Cardassian is doing. At first, the man’s incarceration is a relief. The longer it goes on, the more disturbing it becomes. 

He walks past the tailor’s shop, occasionally at first, then later more regularly, until he falls into a nightly habit of taking the long way from the infirmary to his quarters, just so he can peek in and feel that same jolt of disappointment when he finds the shop dark and empty.

Eventually he’s stopping at Quarks before his wanderings take him past the shop, preemptively dulling the pain with synth ale, then Romulan. 

Garak’s release somehow makes things a hundred times worse. Julian had done his best to forget the date, but Jadzia, naturally, hears of it from Kira and the news is all over Ops within a few hours, and all over the station in a few more. For days, Julian toys with the idea of going to find the man in his shop, but talks himself out of it, reasoning that if Garak wanted that, he’d seek out Julian himself. 

When Garak, Sisko, Odo, and Dax are found unconscious on the runabout, he pretends not to care too much, focusing his attention mostly on the Captain. But when Garak starts to bleed spontaneously, he feels as though it’s his own blood running down the Cardassian’s cheek and staining the medical bedding.

When the whole thing’s been resolved, the crew deemed fit for release, he can’t help himself. 

“Oh, and Garak—“ The Cardassian whirls around to face him. “Lunch next week?”

A half-smile and an angled nod is all he gets, but he’ll take it. 

*****

For a while afterward, their lunchtime meetings are somewhat regular. Sometimes Ziyal is with them. 

Once or twice, Julian contemplates inviting a date of his own, but he never gets up the nerve. Somehow Ziyal is a concession he’s willing to make for Garak — she’s the only other Cardassian on the station, after all. Who could Julian possibly invite that could be considered on equal footing? 

It’s not that he doesn’t like Ziyal, of course. She’s a bright and charming, if misguided, young woman.

When she’s called away early one afternoon by a Bajoran security officer, Julian’s heart leaps into his chest. The officer claims that Major Kira wishes to see Ziyal.

“My guess is that Major Kira has _already_ seen you, and doesn’t approve of the company you’re keeping,” says Garak as she gets up. His tone is snide, and Ziyal rolls her eyes and gives him a whatever-you-say-dear smile, but Julian knows that there’s probably more than a grain of truth to what Garak is implying. 

He sits contentedly for a moment, enjoying the unexpected silence, before saying it. 

“She loves you, you know.”

Garak looks at him like he’s just insulted the Union.

“Oh, stop.”

“Perhaps you’re right, Doctor. The girl’s at a certain age. She hasn’t had the opportunity to…” he trails off, apparently having second thoughts about the conversational territory he’s approaching. He clears his throat. “I can’t control how she feels.”

“But how do _you_ feel?” The question hurts Bashir more than he was expecting it to; he looks away quickly to hide his eyes.

“I think in this circumstance, how I feel is rather irrelevant.”

Bashir knows that Garak intends his statement to be a blockade, but he pushes past it. “That’s your problem, isn’t it, Garak? I don’t think you really know how you feel. I think you pretend not to feel at all, because it’s easier.”

“Doctor, if you’re going to sit here and try to psychoanalyse me, I think I have more productive ways I’d prefer to spend my afternoon.”

If the previous statement was a blockade, this one is a cave-in. Bashir isn’t a complete social idiot. He finishes his tea and tries to look at Garak without thinking about how much he’s lost.

_He feels something. He must! If I could only get him to admit it, maybe…_

But he can’t see the other side of “maybe.”

*****

He has plenty of time to mull it over, in the Dominion camp. The first few nights are torture -- physically, he’s uncomfortable. But physical discomfort is fairly simple to overcome. The real pain is in knowing full-well that no one’s looking for him — that no one even knows he’s missing. 

It’s in wondering whether Garak is at the replimat having lunch with his doppleganger; wondering whether the Cardassian is getting suspicious. It’s knowing that any suspicions could be allayed with the knowledge that they’ve drifted apart -- that Bashir has changed toward Garak, specifically. 

It’s Occam’s Razor. No one has any reason to think beyond the simplest explanation. 

Eventually, Julian begins to think that perhaps his current circumstance is for the best. If he and Garak are going to continue to play this same game, Julian thinks he’d rather not be around. 

*****

When Garak sees him, his entire body flinches. Everything falls into place at once, and he feels as though he’s been punched in the stomach. When his thoughts make sense again, the first one to surface is a desperate question. 

_Why didn’t I notice?_

He should take it as a blessing that Bashir is even interested in talking to him, but of course, at first, he doesn’t know how long Bashir’s been here. 

_Did I… that night… was it...?_

But he pushes that thought away. It’s not worth facing it -- not here, anyway. 

Tain’s presence helps to mitigate that pain, for a while. Garak can’t decide whether to give up and give in, or push the Doctor further away, like a sliver being slowly driven out of the flesh. It’s not a calculated risk to let Julian stay when Tain is dying. It’s a choice Garak barely makes at all — he’s too strained and exhausted to care anymore. With every word that passes through his father’s lips Elim can feel the threads between himself and Julian being pulled taut, almost to snapping. 

He’s glad, in some distant part of the back of his mind, when he gets assigned to work in the crawl space. He tells himself that what he feels is gratitude, at being able to make himself useful, but he knows better. Working silently in that tight, enclosed darkness is an excellent method of self-flagellation. 

And when the lights go out and the walls close in around him and Julian -- the _real_ Julian -- is there to pull him out, he thinks first: _I don’t deserve this._

And second: _I don’t deserve him._

When the Klingons are called to that farce of a battlefield, the silence in the room is a relief. Julian sits on the edge of his bed. Garak can feel the heat radiating off the human’s body through the blanket. 

“I’m glad you’re here,” Julian says suddenly. He pauses. “I mean. I’m not… glad you’re _here,_ but...” He goes silent again, and Elim can’t bear it. 

“Doctor,” he attempts. His throat feels swollen; dry. “If I must endure this test, I am glad to have you by my side.”

He means it, with every fibre of his being. 

Bashir looks up at him, and seems as though he's about to lay a hand on Garak shoulder. He speaks instead. “My… doppleganger…?”

Garak closes his eyes. “You cannot know how much pain it brings me to say this, but… it's a near-perfect replica.”

Julian’s silent for a long time. At length, he stutters into another question. “Did we…” he swallows. “Did you and… it…?”

“I can at least say, Doctor, that I accept no substitutes. Not in that department.”

Julian nods, assimilating the information. Garak’s almost surprised that the younger man hasn’t mentioned Tain since he watched Elim carry the man toward his death, but he realizes that this is what he’s wanted. To be left alone -- to not have to answer questions. 

A crescendo of Jem'Hadar voices sound from the corridor. Julian’s muscles tighten, he sits up. 

“Garak,” he says quietly, looking back at the Cardassian before getting to his feet, “I missed you.”

“And I you, Doctor.”


	8. Chapter 8

They don’t say much on the trip home. 

It takes Garak every shred of remaining energy not to shrink back into his own head. He can’t give in to mourning Tain, not while the Doctor is right here, so he spends the entire ride standing on the precipice of some unnamed emotion, a pit too vast and deep for him to fathom.

He can’t deny that having the Doctor there makes it more bearable. He’s grateful to Julian for his attentive care, and likewise filled with seething hatred — toward the Dominion, toward Tain, and toward himself; he despises the fact that he feels better, comfortable in the runabout with the doctor sitting next to him, heading back to the frankly _easy_ life he’s failed to enjoy for over a decade now.

It’s after they pass through the airlock, apparently when they both realize that there’s no longer any confinement forcing them together, that Bashir turns and says, “Uh, so… lunch, then?” As if nothing had passed between them, as if the last four weeks of _his_ life had been some sort of dream. 

A righteous anger floods Garak. He can’t believe that the doctor could be so _blasé_ about this. To take such a lackadaisical attitude to his own near-death by slow torture and starvation. Garak can hear a lecture writing itself in his mind: _on Cardassia, we take these things more seriously._

He grabs the Doctor by both shoulders and says, “No. Dinner. Tomorrow night, my quarters. 1900.”

Bashir offers no quarrel. 

*****

1900 rolls around and the doorbell chirps.

“Come in,” says Garak, already standing.

The door opens with a swish and Bashir steps inside. His face and posture are somber.

“Please, Doctor…” says Garak in a tone that wants to be light but comes out strained. He’s had a lengthy diatribe prepared, in case Bashir should need coaxing out of his existential ennui — but he finds he’s suddenly missing the script. 

Julian shakes his head. “I don’t want to think about anything right now.”

Then the doctor’s kissing Garak, grabbing at his hair and his jaw and probing his cooperative mouth with his tongue.

They tumble into the room and onto the sofa, letting the door shut smoothly behind them. When they part, gasping for air, Julian’s already got his uniform half off so Garak does the logical thing and helps him the rest of the way out of it. 

Somehow he loses his own clothing in the process and then they’re pressed together, horizontal, and Garak can feel Julian’s hot, hard cock slicking against his _Ajan_ and all it takes is a few desperate rolls of the Doctor’s narrow hips and he’s fully everted, his own wet, throbbing length pushing against Julian’s. 

The doctor gasps and says his name in a way that’s almost girlish.

“Doctor,” says Garak cautiously, trying to keep the tremble of arousal out of his voice, “may I take you?”

He wonders distantly if it’s inappropriate, if he’s making an unfair power play, taking advantage of Julian’s emotional state. It’s clear that the younger man is seeking something, though whether it’s validation or punishment Garak can’t be sure. He can’t think of any other way to provide either, though, so he forges ahead. 

Julian trembles against him. “Oh god. Yes, please Garak. Take me.”

“Mm.” Garak appraises the doctor’s skin they switch positions, the way the man’s lean musculature moves beneath, smooth as ripples on a quiet pond. “Begging is a good look on you, Doctor.”

Julian evidently isn’t in the mood for snarky responses. He cries out plainly at the intrusion of a single one of Garak’s fingers, slick with lubricant. Garak twists the finger, bending it playfully to stroke the younger man’s insides, chuckling to himself, half-crazed with sexual need and struck with the obscenity of the image set before him.

He adds another finger and Julian bucks against him, huffing his name into the couch cushions. 

“Please, dear Doctor. Call me Elim.”

“Mmmph… call me—Julian.”

“Hm. Very well.” Garak takes hold of himself and removes his fingers, pressing the tip of his reptilian cock against Julian’s opening. 

“Elim—“

“ _Julian._ ” He lets the name roll off his tongue with an almost musical lilt as he plunges into the Doctor, letting out a soft moan that’s mercifully covered up by the doctor’s shocked cries.

Garak thrusts very slowly at first, listening carefully for any indication that he’s hurting Bashir. But the younger man is digging his nails into the sofa cushions and making sounds straight out of a high-quality pornographic holoprogram. Eventually, Garak lets his guard down, just a little, bit by bit, quickening his pace, allowing himself to enjoy the delicious sensation of the doctor’s tight, hot asshole stroking his cock.

Soon he’s grabbing at the man’s narrow waist, fingers scraping skin and bone but never finding purchase. The younger man turns his head up, those smouldering dark amber eyes meeting Garak’s. 

Julian says “tell me.” 

Garak gasps and Julian says it again. 

Garak says “I’m—Doctor I’m— ah _aah!_ ” 

He doesn’t quite get it out in time, but Julian really doesn’t seem to care because then he’s coming into his fingers while Garak shuts his eyes and fills him, giving one final, decisive thrust.

For a while they stay there, breathing, until Julian laughs and says, “oh… I’m terribly sorry about your cushions…”

*****

“So… that was your father…?” Julian’s words are clumsy. Garak tenses next to him on the bed. 

“Yes, Doctor. He was my father. Now he’s dead, and talking about him isn't going to bring him back.”

He doesn’t look at the doctor but he can feel the younger man trying to find some way to open him up. Garak sighs. 

“Please, Doctor. Please stop.”

“Ziyal, then,” He says after a moment.

“What about her?”

“I… well, I just. Have you spoken to her? Since… you got back, I mean.”

“I have.” Garak turns his head to face Julian. They’re not quite touching, but Garak can still feel the human’s pleasant, radiant warmth. When he’d invited Julian into his quarters, he’d accepted the risk that the human might overstay his welcome. 

What he hadn’t expected was his own distinct terror at the idea of Julian leaving him alone for the night. 

He hadn't said anything, of course. But Julian had asked very politely if he could stay the night, and Garak had taken the bait, relaxed into the role of giving permission.

“Garak… does she know? About us?”

“What about us, dear?”

Julian chews his lip. He knows Garak’s given him an opening by using the word _us,_ but it’s as unstable as a new wormhole. 

He opts for frankness. “Does she know we’ve slept together?” 

“She knows that we once shared a… particular bond. But doctor, she and I have really only become close in the time since I was released from the holding cell — and by that time, I assumed that things were more or less… over, between you and I.”

_You bastard,_ thinks Julian. _Admitting to what we had only after you made sure it was broken._

Julian’s voice is quiet and shaky as he asks the ceiling, “are things… over?”

“I believe, since you were the one to ‘call it off,’ as it were, that you’re the only one who can make that assessment, dear.” 

Julian’s silent, then. Garak doesn’t expect an answer — doesn’t particularly want one. He stares at the ceiling until he’s certain that Julian is asleep, then curls onto his side, allowing the fingers of one hand to delicately skim the human’s back, letting them come to rest against Bashir’s shoulder. 

Feeling warm for what seems like the first time in his life, Garak sleeps.


	9. Chapter 9

Garak’s never thought of himself in such black and white terms as _good_ or _evil._ Sometimes he wonders if such concepts even exist, or if perhaps the entire universe is simply a wash of grey. 

He’s spent a lifetime merely doing what’s been asked of him. 

But his time spent with the Doctor has taught him something of a different perspective -- a Federation perspective. And he has no doubt that to the Federation, a good number of his actions skew much further into the dark.

Lying in the infirmary after his return from Empok Nor, Garak remembers little but the way the drug made everything _brighter._

The distant stars had been enough to illuminate the station’s corridors; the shine of those Starfleet-issue UV flashlights cut like a knife into his head. A wave of nausea passes over him as he remembers them. 

He remembers the killing, too. The _rage._ The thrill of plunging the phase coupler into Amaro’s stomach. The soft crunch of metal pulverizing flesh, hitting bone and digging in. He shivers. 

A thrill he hadn’t felt since before Bashir had neutralized the wire. 

Bashir, for his part, had been remarkably understanding, covering for Garak with doe-eyed excuses and pleas of temporary insanity. 

_You weren’t yourself. You were drugged!_

Excuses muttered into his mouth in the darkness of the Doctor’s quarters, excuses that Garak lets himself accept in the moment in exchange for momentary gratification, excuses that Garak collects like his ancestors would have collected firewood.

The man’s naïveté never ceases to amaze the Cardassian — and more, he finds it somehow titillating. _Sexy,_ even. The Doctor’s innocence has been refuted beyond a shadow of a doubt — yet the way the man still strives to maintain his facade strikes Garak as a beautiful show, put on, perhaps, just for him.

Ziyal has not been to visit him. 

The inquest had led to nothing, only palpable frustration on both sides, and in the end Garak had been sent off to his newer, slightly larger tailoring shop -- its own kind of prison. 

But the Doctor visits him, coming by every week to ask for some minor alteration on a garment that obviously fits him perfectly. They have their lunches. When there’s time and enough action on the Dominion front to belay any suspicion, they find themselves in each others’ beds. 

One such evening, as Julian emerges from the sonic shower, Garak says cautiously, “you really aren’t bothered by it?”

“By what?”

“I killed a starfleet officer, Doctor. That doesn’t grate against your moral code?” He’s trespassing into delicate territory, but that’s all Garak’s ever known how to do.

Julian stares at him in the mirror. He wants to say yes. _Yes, Garak. It’s clear this can never work. Let’s dispense with this charade, shall we?_ But something stops him. An enveloping sadness at the idea of losing this. Whatever _this_ is.

The Doctor imagines Garak, hissing and moaning as he fights for his life, bloody and wild and animal. Just the thought of the older man reduced to his base instincts makes Julian’s cock twitch. 

Is it truly his _medical_ determination that none of what occurred on the abandoned station was Garak’s fault? Have they both forgotten about Garak’s attempted actions against Dominion homeworld? Is Julian merely stringing station command along, trying to convince them that a simple Cardassian tailor should be none of their concern, hoping that everyone else’s conviction will assuage his own deep concerns?

All Julian knows is that ever since hearing the story of Garak’s indiscretion, his private fantasies have become decidedly more… _violent._

*****

Even on the Jem'hadar cruiser, Julian daydreams. Even with death hanging over him like a great black tarpaulin, he wants. 

It occurs to him that this is perhaps the thirst of a man condemned. The uncertainty of a tomorrow necessitates taking pleasure where one can find it. He never discovers a satisfactory answer, but on the second evening of the journey he seeks out Garak’s quarters and asks to be let in. 

“Come,” says Garak quietly.

_Please,_ thinks Julian.

“I need you,” he whispers, his voice breathy and hot, and Garak responds with his tongue.

There’s a rough shifting of bodies and clothing and Julian finds himself on top, his own back pressed into the bulkhead as he feels his cock growing against the soft heat of Garak’s backside.

He reaches forward, biting into neck ridges while his fingers run the length of the Cardassian’s _ajan,_ already slick with arousal. He feels Garak’s cock begin to evert; behind, he thrusts gently until he finds purchase, wrapping a hand around his lover’s mouth. The act is unnecessary -- if there’s anything Garak knows it’s when and how to keep silent. Julian pushes a finger into that heat and Garak sucks gently.

The Doctor hisses with his own pleasure as Garak’s hands guide his up the length of his slick cock, now fully exposed and hungry. 

They rock back and forth on the narrow bunk, Julian stroking Garak as he fucks him. He feels the wave of his orgasm beginning to crest and hurries his pace, mouthing silent prayers into Garak’s hair. He comes, hard, and feels Garak follow a split second later, semen flowing over his fingers as they tighten around the Cardassian’s shaft. 

He leaves before Garak emerges from his post-orgasmic fugue state. Both men mourn privately, knowing that this all they’ll get during this war, possibly ever again. 

****

After two days in a cave with the entire crew, an excuse to fire phasers comes as a relief. 

Garak manages to hit two Jem’Hadar and feels, again, the thrill of that release, of pulling the trigger and watching the orange beam of the phaser penetrating their armour and skin. The final howls of the soldiers as they fall are familiar, and Garak hears, in a backward, distorted note, the recollected sounds of Julian moaning into his skin.

He can’t help but feel Bashir looking at him a little bit differently when the smoke clears and he’s standing, looking impassively at the fallen Jem’Hadar. 

But they’re enemies -- cold, calculating fighting machines, no better than the Borg. 

The day after they return, the Doctor appears at the door to Garak’s shop and seems surprised that he’s there. Says as much, even. 

“Where else would I be, Doctor?”

“I don’t know. I just thought… maybe… with all that happened…” Julian waves his hands uselessly. 

“You’d prefer it if I were in my quarters, weeping over Ziyal?”

Julian winces at her name. “I wouldn’t _prefer_ anything. How you deal with it is up to you.”

“What’s to ‘deal with,’ Doctor? She’s gone, and that’s a tragedy, but what good will any introspection on my part do?”

“You know, this is the same thing you did when your father died.”

Garak’s eyes flash with anger and he looks away. Julian watches him as he gathers himself. 

“Dr. Bashir. Given this information, has it not occurred to you that _getting on with my life_ might be exactly how I choose to work through such things?”

The doctor shuffles his feet like a child being scolded. For a moment, Garak thinks that he’ll leave. Instead, he opens his beautiful, stupid mouth again. 

“Garak. You’ve been… different. Ever since the incident on Empok Nor. What’s happened to you?”

Garak wants to say, _I’ve rediscovered the pleasure of killing, Doctor,_ but he isn’t that tactless. 

“I assure you, Doctor, I’m the same old simple tailor. Just as you’ve always known me.”

“Except you’ve never been a simple tailor, Garak. Cut the act. You just shot three Jem’Hadar soldiers like you were making breakfast. And this time there was no psychoactive compound. Admit it -- you _liked_ it.”

The doctor spits his words like venom. Garak drops his work and looks at the man, his gaze level. In his mind, he’s suddenly back on the planet, aiming a phaser from behind the rocks, and he’s filled with an overwhelming urge to drag Julian into the fitting room and fuck him until they’re both bleeding. 

But he controls himself. Stills his breathing. Steps forward. 

“Of _course_ I liked it, Doctor. And what else did you expect from me? You’ve always been so _perceptive._ I’ll admit, that’s part of what I find so intriguing about you. And you! You’ve always had a thing for hopeless cases, doctor. I don’t believe for one second that my… perception of events… is a deterrent for you. So what is it? Are you _frightened_?”

Julian’s lip quivers. In his eyes there’s anger, and something else unreadable.

“I’m not afraid, Garak. But I can’t.. I can’t support it.”

“Your tears won’t convince me to change, Doctor. I am the man I’ve always been. I’m simply looking out for Cardassia — someone has to, what with those buffoons they’ve got in charge and—“

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t make it about _Cardassia._ You know full well this is only about you. You haven’t been to Cardassia in nearly a decade, anyway, how do you know anything about it?” Julian knows he’s gone too far but he can’t stop himself. “You’re a goddamned psychopath, Garak! And I can’t be a part of that. Of this. Of any of it.”

“You’re welcome to leave then, Doctor.”

He stands there, for a moment, breathing heavily. Garak’s heart feels like it might explode, but he stands his ground, ignoring the screaming in the back of his mind. 

“Fine,” says Bashir quite suddenly, turning on a heel. 

“Fine,” says Garak in the most nonchalant tone he can muster. 

*****

The following day, Garak’s shop stays closed.


	10. Chapter 10

Julian is on the scene within minutes of the stabbing. Odo had evidently elected to contact him first, even before the Captain. When Julian arrives he finds Quark slumped against the bar, clutching his chest and moaning. 

The speed of station gossip dictates that Quark knows his assailant’s resumé, parentage, and blood type by the time he’s arrived in the infirmary for his follow-up the next day.

“Word is,” says Quark, leaning toward the Doctor conspiratorially as Julian runs the scanner over his chest, “that Tolar is an ex of… _you know._ ”

“Hold still please,” says Julian, stalling. He opts to play the fool. “I’m afraid I don’t know.”

“Garak,” hisses Quark, disappointed.

“Ah,” Julian manages. 

Truthfully, he has a hard time imagining Garak having exes. It isn’t that he can’t imagine Garak fucking anyone else. And there was Ziyal, of course, though he doesn’t — and would rather not — know if the two of them ever got further than holding hands. But that aside, Julian’s always figured that every one of the Cardassian’s trysts would have followed a similar formula to their own: a buildup of intolerable sexual tension, followed by a few weeks of discreet release, followed by some catastrophic argument pulling the whole thing down by the scaffolding. 

Rinse, repeat.

He and Garak haven’t spoken a great deal since their argument in the tailor’s shop. Julian tells himself he’s just busy, and he is. He’s been exhausted, sleeping just enough to keep from passing out during surgery. 

There’s something going on on the station, but at this point he’s learned better than to stick his nose in it. If it’s another Dominion infiltration, he reasons, it’s about time their number came up. Statistically speaking.

Rumours of Senator Vreenak’s visit flood the station, and he can’t help but overhear a few of his staff’s conversations. He tries not to listen, but he’s never been one to avoid a good thread of gossip. 

“I heard that Captain Sisko bribed the Romulans to get this meeting.”

“Bribed them? With what?”

“Well… I guess when you put it that way...”

“Vreenak isn’t a Romulan. He’s a Vorta, in disguise.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I heard the Cardassian tailor is helping Sisko. Some real shady stuff.”

Julian freezes before turning around. 

Someone else says, “Garak? Why would the Cardie help Sisko? Aren’t they on the side of the Dominion?”

“Yeah, but who knows with this guy, right? He was abandoned by his own people -- probably desperate…” The voices get quieter as their owners, off-duty now, leave the infirmary. For a second, Julian’s muscles take over and he stands, heading for the door. 

He chastises himself before he reaches it and heads sheepishly back into his office.

*****

Garak shows up at the Welcome to the War party because he’s technically invited, though he knows better than to make a show of it. He hangs around in a corner, nursing a replicated Romulan ale for most of the affair, watching Julian flit between conversations. 

As the evening wears on, he realizes just how strong the ale is — watching Julian, he can tell that the Doctor hasn’t quite accounted for it, either. 

Garak’s pupils dilate as he analyses the situation.

And then it happens: Julian slinks over to the corner where Garak is quietly observing, stumbles -- or perhaps takes a deliberate fall -- and spills into the Cardassian’s lap.

“Well, good evening Doctor,” says Garak, trying to infuse his voice with the bemused discomfort of someone dealing with an overly touchy acquaintance. “Nice of you to… drop in.”

“Mm…” says Julian.

_Don’t you get any closer with that mouth of yours._

“Garak… you’ve been sitting here for the entire evening! What’s the matter with you? Are you—are you depressed?”

“Depressed? No, dear. Though, when you think of it, the Romulans being dragged into combat by the threat of their own annihilation _does_ seem worthy of some good old fashioned human _lamentation._ ”

“Ohhh…” Julian pulls up his head to look his former lover in the eye. “There you go again, Commander Doom and Gloom.”

“That’s _Legate_ Doom and Gloom to you, Doctor. And I believe… you are drunk.”

“A very astute hypothesis, Garak.”

“Now, Julian…” Garak sees he’s made a mistake immediately by the way Julian’s lips curl at the mention of his name. “Doctor. Please. Perhaps we should take a walk before you do something… regrettable.”

Julian looks confused for a second, then nods vigorously. “A walk! Splendid idea, Garak. Where shall we go?”

“Let’s not concern ourselves with a destination.”

For once, Julian doesn’t seem interested in questioning Garak’s logic. He stands, with some assistance from that sturdy Cardassian frame, and they wander away from the party, unnoticed. 

Garak leads them down quiet corridors, his rough knowledge of Odo’s positioning schedule for the security officers allowing them to go quite unnoticed. 

Eventually they pass into a pylon and Julian becomes enraptured by the view through one of the large, ovoid windows. Garak indulges him and they stand, side-by-side, not quite touching. 

At length, Julian asks, “What are the stars like on Cardassia?”

Garak takes a moment to ponder the question. “I suppose, Doctor, that they’re much the same as they are on Earth, or Bajor, or any number of other inhabited planets. Much the same as they are here. Points of light, scattered randomly in darkness.

“They’re not random! They’re in constellations. Look --” Julian begins drawing an imaginary line between distant stars with an outstretched finger. 

“ _Federaji._ ” Garak chides, inflecting the word like a term of endearment. “Always so eager to impose your order on that which does not concern you.”

Julian’s silent for a moment.

“Did you ever just _look_ at the stars? When you lived on Cardassia?”

Garak glances at the Doctor then looks away, picking one of those millions of random points of light to focus on. 

His memories of the Cardassian night sky are almost exclusively situated at Bamarren, the camp where he spent two of his late teenage years, learning how to survive.

There was a secret place, at Bamarren. A clearing, hidden away, visible only to those who knew how to look for it.

He closes his eyes and sees the stars above Cardassia. The silence of the pylon becomes the silence of that place. He can hear his own breathing. Julian, next to him, becomes someone else. 

His throat feels suddenly restricted, and he blinks, biting his cheek again, trying to find clarity in pain.

“No,” he lies. “I never had the time.”

“Too bad,” says Julian, mercifully too absorbed in his own intoxicated thoughts to have noticed Garak’s faltering. 

Garak doesn’t look at him. Can’t. He knows he won’t be able to stop himself from…

And then Julian’s face is in front of his, obscuring those distant stars, and Garak’s vision turns to black as he shuts his eyes and leans into the kiss. The rush of it seems to sober both of them, momentarily, because Julian pulls away too fast and looks down. 

“Um. I’m sorry.”

And Garak whispers hoarsely, “don’t apologize, my dear.” They gaze at each other for a beat too long. Garak nods and steps back a little further. “But you’d best be getting back to that party -- people will start to talk.”

Julian looks out the window again, his mouth curling into a sad smile.

“Garak,” he says tentatively. “You did it, didn’t you?”

“...it? My dear?”

“You blew up that ship. You killed Vreenak.”

Garak opens his mouth, then shuts it again. “Yes,” he says plainly. The barest hint of a shiver runs through him — Tain rolling over in his grave, no doubt.

Julian gazes out the window for a moment longer, then turns back to give Garak that same sad smile before rushing back down the corridor. Garak’s gaze doesn’t follow him. Instead, the tailor stares out at the stars, wondering which one of those distant lights is Cardassia Prime.


	11. Chapter 11

Julian holds the tricorder still as Garak breathes. 

“Another. Try to hold it for a few seconds,” says the Doctor, not looking up from the device.

Garak does as he’s told, his exhale heavy and sudden. 

“There’s nothing _physically_ wrong with you, Garak,” says Julian, frowning. His mind flashes back to the Jem’Hadar prison, and he watches his hands tug the thin, dirty blanket over Garak’s catatonic form.

“I thought as much, Doctor. That makes it all the worse.”

“I can prescribe you a sedative, but other than that… I’m not exactly equipped to deal with this type of illness.” He walks over to his desk and taps a few keys on the computer. “Luckily,” he says, “We finally have a counselor aboard Deep Space Nine. I recommend that you two have a conversation.”

Garak pushes himself into a seated position and waves a hand. “Very well, Doctor. You may pass along my shop hours to Ms. Dax -- I’m sure I’ll have a few minutes to spare for a chat. People seem less interested in fashion, these days.”

Julian winces at the name. _Dax._ He can’t help it. The wound’s still fresh, and the fact that Ezri’s just… here, walking around, _living_...

Garak says something else but Julian doesn’t hear him. He feels like an animal, pulled along by the hollow promise of a reward. Crudely, he’s the carriage horse, and Ezri is the carrot on the stick. His feelings for Jadzia had cooled over time. He’d grown to admire her as a friend. Ezri, though, is new; different. 

He’s attracted to her. He can’t deny it. But that attraction speaks to something ugly within himself that he doesn’t want to face. Even the side of him that Garak brings out, that ruthless, argumentative edge, doesn’t compare. He wants Ezri because she seems easy to get -- and like a knockoff version of something better, he knows he’ll use her, and throw her away.

He shakes his head and pulls himself back to reality. Garak’s still sitting on the biobed, staring at him. At length, the man begins to speak.

“Doctor… when Ziyal died, I didn’t feel anything. Oh, some measure of shock, perhaps, but even that. Well. We both knew her father. It’s an unfortunate fact that the young woman didn’t stand much of a chance so long as she refused to go to Bajor where she’d be safer.”

“Garak… why are you telling me this?”

“I’m _trying_ to tell you something important, dear. As I was saying, when Ziyal died I felt nothing. But in the weeks and months following her death I began to realize that it was _not_ , in fact, nothing. That the numbness that I felt toward the entire situation was merely a delay, a deferral for things that I was not yet prepared to feel. As time passes I feel… I feel _angry._ I’m angry at Damar, for murdering her, senselessly. I’m angry at Dukat for putting her in a situation where that was a possibility. I’m angry at myself for leaving her behind, for lying by omission, and for not being _better._

Ziyal, you understand, is gone. But! Now we come to my point, Doctor. Jadzia. Jadzia lives on in Ezri. Now -- ah! don’t turn away, Doctor. I like to think that I know you. And I know that you’re curious, that you’ve always sought scientific understanding in these matters. But in this case… it seems to me that you’re letting that curiosity fall by the wayside. You know that a joined symbiont doesn’t cease to be when its host dies. You’re telling yourself that because Jadzia’s body is dead, that _she_ is also dead. But Doctor, this isn’t the case! The Jadzia that you loved is breathing, and alive, in the body of Ezri Dax!” Garak is standing now, circling the Doctor like a hungry shark. 

He delivers the final blow with obvious relish. “Unless, dear Doctor, you simply loved Jadzia Idaris in _spite_ of the Dax symbiont…” 

Garak’s breath is hot in his ear as Julian absorbs his words.

 _To accept that Jadzia lives is to accept that she’s still loyal to Worf,_ thinks Julian, replacing one despair with another. 

“It sounds as though you’re trying to set me up with Ezri.”

The Cardassian turns again so that he’s facing Julian head-on, only an inch or two between them. 

“Doctor. It’s quite obvious that you’re infatuated with her. And with Worf out of the picture…” Garak waves a speculative hand. “After all this time, it seems only right that you should finally find happiness.”

Garak’s being facetious, of course.

_Right?_

Julian wills him to add to his statement, to say: _and apparently I can’t give you that._ He wants Garak’s melodrama, his calculated, put-upon sorrow.

But Garak doesn’t say anything else. 

*****

Garak doesn’t _want_ to dislike Ezri, but something in him comes closer to snapping every time they meet. 

She talks to him about his claustrophobia as if he’s a child just learning what the word means. Half-listening, he thinks that maybe Jadzia would have just slapped him across the face, and maybe that would have been better.

He tries to examine that feeling, his disdain for the girl. In some ways, Ezri is akin to the Julian Bashir that Garak had met nearly seven years ago, the sparkling, bubbly, terrifyingly green young man who’d caught Garak’s attention and lifted him out of the murk of complacency. He tries to imagine Ezri’s words coming from Julian’s mouth, but he can’t. There’s a difference there, more than gender. Where Julian’s youth was self-assured to the point of obliviousness, in Ezri he sees a constant, oppressive uncertainty. The woman questions her every move, her every thought, becoming so tangled in herself that there isn’t a crack in the facade for Garak to exploit. She has no fully-formed truth about herself, no personal compass.

Were Garak still in the Order, Ezri might have terrified him. 

She draws out his confessions all the same. At least she has determination going for her. One evening, after she’s cornered him in the shop once again, Garak finds himself at the door to Julian’s quarters. He signals tentatively, and the Doctor’s voice sounds mildly surprised through the door. 

“Garak,” He says, when the Cardassian enters. “What a pleasant surprise.”

 _So, we’ve arrived back at hollow niceties,_ Garak thinks.

“Doctor. Forgive me for intruding, but I…” _I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t want to be alone. My own quarters are closing in on me and your voice reminds me that there’s room enough, at least, for two._

Garak lets the words float away, unsaid. 

Julian shakes his head. “It’s quite alright. I was just reading.”

“Reading? May I inquire as to your choice of literature this evening?”

“Oh,” says Bashir, as if suddenly embarrassed. “It’s uh… it’s just some old science fiction trash.”

“Surely, Doctor, you wouldn’t stoop to reading _trash._ I’d be the first to call your tastes questionable, but…”

“ _Ringworld._ It’s by an old Earth author called Larry Niven.”

“ _Ringworld?_ ” Garak allows himself a dramatic look around the room. “Rather apt, don’t you think?”

“I never…” Julian smiles. “That never occurred to me, but I suppose you’re right. But, it’s just… it’s not very good. It’s pulpy. Silly, really. You wouldn’t be interested.”

“And since when do you presume to know what _interests_ me?”

Julian narrows his eyes. “What are you really here for, Garak?”

_I’m scared. I’m losing you and I’ve only just realized that I don’t want to. This room is… so very small._

“Can’t I simply stop by to visit? As a cherished old friend?”

Julian looks at him for a long time. When he finally speaks, his voice is distant. 

“Garak… did I ever tell you about what happened in the Founder’s simulation all those years ago?”

“Doctor…?”

“You died in that simulation, Garak. You were shot. Right in front of me. And I… I remember, in that moment, feeling pure, unthinking _horror._ ”

Julian sits down heavily. Garak takes the invitation and sits next to him, leaving some space between. 

“I’ve lost friends in this war, Garak. People I’ve known. People I’ve loved. People I’ve only ever met once. But even on the mornings when I wake up and read the name of someone I knew off on the list… I’ve never… _never... _felt horror like that.” He turns to Garak. His eyes seem red around the edges. “Losing you then was like losing a limb, Garak. It was worse.”__

__Garak doesn’t know what to say. His eyes flash to Julian’s lips, but he’s paralyzed._ _

__“But I’ve lost you so many times, Garak. I lost you when you tried to destroy the Founders’ homeworld. I lost you when you murdered that officer. I’m… I’m losing you now.” Julian looks away. His fingers pinch at the fabric of his trousers, finding no purchase. He speaks again, in a voice that’s barely there, and says, “I don’t know what to do.”_ _

__“I’m right here, Doctor.”_ _

__“But for how much longer?”_ _

__“You know as well as I that I can’t possibly answer that question.”_ _

__“I can’t keep waiting.”_ _

__“But what about _right now,_ Doctor?”_ _

__The space between them closes in an instant. It seems like the most natural thing in the world, each man finding the other’s body yielding; willing. Eventually they drag each other into the bedroom._ _

__It’s never been like this, before. Julian’s always thought of himself as taking on whatever role was asked for, in such circumstances. With Garak that role has constantly shifted, but in the moment they’ve always seemed to represent one another’s opposites. This time, though, each man gives and takes in equal measure, struggling endlessly between a base, instinctual hunger and an elevated desire to freeze this single moment, to stretch it out and make it last for an eternity._ _

__They’re together at the climactic moment, staring at each other in the darkness, eyes unseeing, reflecting a million insignificant stars. Julian’s cries are absorbed into the walls, the room becoming a singularity, infinitely dense with promises left unfulfilled and truths never to be told._ _

__The afterglow has the distinct air of a _denouement,_ and hours later as Garak lets the door close behind him he looks back into the room with the sense that he’s shutting the back cover of a book that he won’t pick up again for a very long time. _ _

__Not long afterward things finally break between Julian and Ezri, and when they make love for the first time the Doctor is able to see himself with a clarity that he never had with Leeta, or with any of the other women he’s been with so briefly. He fills his senses with Ezri, knowing it won’t last._ _

__Even Jadzia doesn’t intrude._ _

__And to Garak, Deep Space Nine seems suddenly, unrelentingly vast._ _


	12. Chapter 12

When Bashir learns that Garak and Kira are teaming up with Damar, the first thing he does is to laugh. 

Then he’s struck with a kind of fear that makes him run to the tailor’s shop, telling his nurses, as he’s halfway out the door, that he has a simple errand to run. He finds the shop shuttered and dark; a gasping sob catches in his throat.

“Doctor? What are you doing here?”

Julian looks up, blinking his eyes back into place. “Garak! I… I heard you were leaving. I came to see you off.”

“Ah. Well, you’ve caught me just in time. I’m to meet the Major at the airlock in five minutes.”

“Were you going to leave without saying anything?”

For once, Garak’s eyes say everything for him. Still, he speaks. “I thought that everything had, more or less, been said. Doctor.”

Julian wants desperately to argue that point, but there’s no fight left in him. Or maybe there’s too much fight, everywhere else. 

So he only hangs his head. 

As the other man is about to turn away he says, quietly, “Garak… do you remember, all those years ago… that isolinear rod in your quarters…?”

A smile. “A tall tale, I’m afraid.”

At this Julian laughs. The effort of it tickles, in a way that’s almost painful. “At least I know I can count on your lies.”

“Have I become so predictable?” 

The kiss that Julian plants on him then is quick; chaste. It doesn’t feel exactly right, and it’s a little awkward, but they both know now that this is the last time.

It has to count for something. 

*****

Watching the Jem’Hadar destroy his world is too much; Garak barely feels anything. It’s destruction on too great a scale for an individual to truly fathom. It’s what an ant must feel seeing its entire colony wiped out with a single sweep of a broom. The sheer weight of the destruction and loss flows through him so that he becomes a part of it as much as it is a part of him, and in that dual existence there’s no room for awareness of one or the other.

Eventually, though, his mind needs to put a face to those losses. Standing on the ship watching the monitors, Garak thinks first of Damar.

They hadn’t had time to become truly close — as if that were something Garak had even been capable of — but in the time he’d spent with Damar, Garak had learned that the man had a certain, almost charming capacity to laugh in the face of certain death. Garak had long found that ability to be one of the things he could truly appreciate about himself, and seeing it reflected back at him gave him a strange, sad sense that he and Damar might have been friends.

And Damar is a hero, now. Or soon will be. It’s deserved, in Garak’s opinion.

When Julian comes up behind him at the terminal, Garak wills the doctor to go away; they’ve already had their last meeting — anything he can say now will only tarnish that. 

Julian looks at Garak and sees him in the moment they met.

_“I’m so glad to have made such an… interesting new friend today.”_

Feelings -- the thrill of the new, that chaotic, frenetic infatuation, feelings that have been fading steadily over the past six years -- are suddenly reinvigorated, and overwhelming. He wants at once to kiss Garak and to run to his quarters and hide under the covers of his bed like a child. He wants to howl with sorrow, to mourn Garak’s loss to the heavens, to mourn the loss of this man standing beside him, this man who’s already gone. 

But he doesn’t do any of that. 

He looks back at the computer screen, screwing up his face as he feels Garak’s fingers brush his shoulder one last time. He waits until he’s sure the Cardassian has left the room before turning, and the sight of the empty doorway hits him like a brick to the chest. 

He gasps, and as he takes a breath he’s wracked with a sob and crumples to the floor with the weight of it. Someone could come in at any moment but he doesn’t care -- he almost wants to be seen like this, just so he won’t have the carry the feeling alone. 

He thinks about Ezri, back on the station, waiting for him. He feels nothing -- then guilt at that nothingness.

******

On the shuttle down to the surface, Garak does much the same. He watches as his wrecked world comes crashing toward him, white curls of smoke giving way to grey, then orange flame and twisted black wreckage. The bodies won’t be visible until he hits the surface, but he can imagine them well enough.

Garak’s changed — maybe in ways that are only perceptible to him. 

As the shuttle lands, he finds himself filled with relief. He wants to cry, but he long ago lost the ability to do so openly, and anyway, there’s no time.

 _Tain’s not here._

For once it’s a statement that applies not just to himself, or to Terok Nor, but to the entire universe. Garak’s upbringing, his legacy; it’s so much dust in the wind. Ironically, it’s the ash that finally bring tears to his eyes as he steps out onto the surface. Terrified of what he’ll face, Garak steadies himself against the hull of the shuttle and closes his eyes. And for a second — a fraction of an instant — he’s back home. The dust blowing over his skin becomes delicate, it speaks of Bamarren, and of the wilderness, and of a home that never really felt like home while he was there.

 _But this… this could be home._ The air is warm, and pungent, and though his view is shrouded in ash, he knows there’s nothing for miles around. No walls, no ceilings, no windows. 

Nothing to trap him.

Garak pulls his shirt up over his mouth and nose and inhales deeply, tasting the air.

_Cardassia._

*****

> _  
> Garak,_
> 
> _I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about writing this, and not enough time doing the actual work. For that, I’m sorry — though I think that neither of us has really had much time to write, these days._
> 
> _The station is much the same. Or, it’s the same physically. But there’s a lot missing._
> 
> _Captain Sisko, for one._
> 
> _Jadzia._
> 
> _You._
> 
> _I could sit here and tell you about my life since you left, but I don’t think that’s what you’d really be interested in._
> 
> _I don’t believe I owe you an explanation, though I think perhaps I owe myself one. I’ll be honest. Part of the reason I’m writing you is that Ezri thinks I should. She thinks it would be healthier for me to get these thoughts out of my head._
> 
> _So, here goes._
> 
> _I never quite knew what you wanted, Garak. And I suppose that maybe I could have found out, had I been less preoccupied with trying to understand what I myself wanted from you. You were exciting, and mysterious, and dangerous, and for a while that was enough. Have you kept that up, on Cardassia? Is there room for that, still?_
> 
> _I’m sorry._
> 
> _I can say I wasn’t ready for you; for us. That it was never the right time. But of course, it never is the right time. We did a delicate dance, never making up our minds, but such delicacy is brittle. You either use it to form something firmer -- but perhaps less beautiful -- or you let it crumble into dust. I guess we chose the latter._
> 
> _There’s a selfish part of me that believes you never really wanted me. That I was only a distraction; an affair undermining your marriage to Cardassia._
> 
> _Well, I’m glad you found your way back to her, Garak. And for my part, I hope_

Julian pauses here, and throws down his PADD, before picking it up again and closing the word processor.

Ezri comes in a moment later. 

“Hi Julian.”

“Ezri. How was work?”

She gives that uncertain little nod that says _not good but not bad._ “It was alright.” Her eyes flick over the scene — Julian, face slightly reddened and dark, the PADD flipped over on top of the bed.

“Did I interrupt something?”

Julian looks at her. She’s there — all of her. Everything’s wide open for him to see. The worry, the affection, the curiosity, the space-sickness that she still sometimes gets when she’s tired. No mystery. 

He smiles, and shakes his head. “Nothing.”

They go into the living room. On the PADD, stored in a tiny memory bank, is an unfinished monument to something he can’t be certain ever existed.

And somewhere on Cardassia, Garak stands in the ruins of Tain’s house, having just made a very interesting new friend by the name of Kelas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't resist wedging a hint of Kelim into this~ sorry not sorry
> 
> Thank you SO MUCH for reading and for all who left kudos and comments while I was taking eons to finish this. You're wonderful. Sorry I couldn't quite swing a happy ending but I hope it's at least satisfactory closure.


End file.
